is Rick Santorum more or less objectionable because he is a Roman Catholic?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Ooh, good question. I think his misuse of Catholicism is a particularly grating quality, which would be impossible without him being Catholic, so more.

(margin found!)

How's he misusing it? The things about him people find so objectionable are just due to him following the church's actual teachings and beliefs.

More, because I see him as a false prophet merely claiming to be Catholic to fool uneducated voters.

The guy goes to Latin Mass, you can't get much more purely Catholic than that. Certainly not something a closet Protestant would do. And who is he fooling? I can't see anyone willing to vote for Santorum but wouldn't be willing to do so if he was Protestant, but plus Catholicism obviously had next to no effect and where his support in the primary came from.

I voted more because what his abhorrent policies come from a very hierarchical and organized organization. Conservative evangelicals are fractured and often fight with things amongst themselves.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Catholicism is a religion of love, compassion, and social obligations. Santorum would be a nasty individual no matter what faith tradition he identified with.

It's kind of odd seeing a gay say this.

I agree with the second sentence though.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Ooh, good question. I think his misuse of Catholicism is a particularly grating quality, which would be impossible without him being Catholic, so more.

(margin found!)

How's he misusing it? The things about him people find so objectionable are just due to him following the church's actual teachings and beliefs.

More, because I see him as a false prophet merely claiming to be Catholic to fool uneducated voters.

The guy goes to Latin Mass, you can't get much more purely Catholic than that. Certainly not something a closet Protestant would do. And who is he fooling? I can't see anyone willing to vote for Santorum but wouldn't be willing to do so if he was Protestant, but plus Catholicism obviously had next to no effect and where his support in the primary came from.

I voted more because what his abhorrent policies come from a very hierarchical and organized organization. Conservative evangelicals are fractured and often fight with things amongst themselves.

To me it comes down to a matter of priorities in his faith.  Growing up the main dictum(s) I was taught was the Great Commandment and The New Commandment. His more strident criticisms and condemnations are misplaced, wrong and at odds with the aforementioned articles.  They are not a message of inclusion but exclusion. Of course, you have many in the college who put forth the same positions. It is one thing to believe something to be sin- it is quite another to de-humanize those who you think engage in it.

OK but what is the Catholic hierarchy and leadership prioritizing? Like it or not, Santorum is more within their worldview than any liberal is.

Catholicism is a religion of love, compassion, and social obligations. Santorum would be a nasty individual no matter what faith tradition he identified with.

It's kind of odd seeing a gay say this.

I agree with the second sentence though.

My partner's extended family is conservative Catholic. And with few exceptions, they are accepting of me, even though they don't accept SSM. Through my partner's life and that of some of the nuns' organizations I see a positive community-minded faith that reminds me of some of what I learned in Hebrew School. It's a part of the faith that is only sometimes conveyed by the leadership, which will speak out against war and in favor of caring for the poor one week and then declare a line in the sand on gay rights the next.

Unfortunately as noted above the priorities lately have radically changed. When was Paul Ryan condemned by the leadership (not a group of rogue nuns) for his economic plans as much as pro-choice and pro-gay marriage politicians have been?

To be honest here's the root problem here for me: It strikes me as a little absurd to say that Catholicism is generally OK and good and it's just some people like Santorum and the leadership who are ruining it but evangelical Protestantism is fundamentally rotten for rather obvious reasons.

my question is this:
Has Santorum mended the catholic-protestant divide that has traditionally existed?

That hasn't been a major factor in anything for around 50 years now.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Voted 'less objectionable'.

To be honest here's the root problem here for me: It strikes me as a little absurd to say that Catholicism is generally OK and good and it's just some people like Santorum and the leadership who are ruining it but evangelical Protestantism is fundamentally rotten for rather obvious reasons.

Please elaborate. I'm by no means a fan of the Catholic Church, but don't find them nearly as rotten as evangelical Protestantism.

I'm a liberal evangelical, so....

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Voted 'less objectionable'.

To be honest here's the root problem here for me: It strikes me as a little absurd to say that Catholicism is generally OK and good and it's just some people like Santorum and the leadership who are ruining it but evangelical Protestantism is fundamentally rotten for rather obvious reasons.

Please elaborate. I'm by no means a fan of the Catholic Church, but don't find them nearly as rotten as evangelical Protestantism.

I'm a liberal evangelical, so....

I thought the ELCA is only Evangelical when that was (mis)translated from Protestant, and that ELCA members aren't considered Evangelical in the modern use of the term.

It's not a mistranslation, just an outdated use of the term.

I go to an actual evangelical church now, where just about everyone is a liberal (at least anyone I've added on Facebook).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

To be honest patrick, I might be a bit less judgmental here if Catholics in general were less judgmental of others' choices and rights to make their own decisions. I doubt it's as bad now as it is 31 years ago but I have never heard of Lutheran parents throwing a fit about their kid getting married in a non-Lutheran church at any point or insisting anyone baptized Lutheran belongs to them to life and they can't ever leave or no longer affiliate with them if they choose that way. oakvale claims that most people in Ireland would consider all the ex-Catholics in my church to still be Catholic, which is like the most inane thing ever.

Despite all that, as I explained here the deep flaws are just too great to that I would never be willing to associate with Catholicism under any circumstances whatsoever, no matter how I was raised or even if my ancestors were 100% Catholic (mind you many of them were). People should not associate with something they have next to nothing in common of due to accident of birth.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'd go. Which is quite different from identifying as Catholic or financially supporting the church in any way. And in fact if I was potentially in such a situation I'd probably stipulate in my will that I would not receive a Catholic funeral (wouldn't be needed though, my parents are the type who'd respect my wishes anyway.)

Let it go, that particular family anecdote was a long time ago. Mistrust and enmity went both ways. As Torie mentioned there was a time that Catholics were seen as insufficiently patriotic by many. This was around a time that all of my forebears including the women were in the Marine Corps or Army fighting for it. Eventually you have to accept what happened as past and go forward.
The Jesuits are not hatching any conspiracies to mass convert you. By doctrine, Baptism is a sacrament and is meant to hold an eternal quality. Likewise with marriage. Now you can choose to be offended your whole life by these things or just accept that you disagree .  I am not very religious, atm at least, but it does seem that you would have a more fulfilling faith by looking at your own beliefs more and how you treat others than to shoot off constantly on how you disagree with something else. As a general rule, it is far better to be for something than against something.

Lastly, a lot of things happen by accident of birth. I didn't ask to be an American either. The beauty here is that you can either accept or reject it.  I hope all is well and you enjoy your Sundays.

OK but can you then understand how people hurt by the church in the past (and people who are divorced are another great example) might have some misgivings and animosity?

I really have no issue with immigration or emigration to quote your example there and to cite the example in my linked post, would it be right for the girl in question there to simply accept her accident of birth and not do what she wanted? But as should be obvious to anyone who's been here awhile I put next to no value whatsoever on tradition or family heritage, at least as far as my personal values are concerned.

Mind you, the Midwest must be one of the places in the Western world with the weakest link between nominal denominational affiliation and ethnicity simply because they aren't very correlated, a lot of the Germans are Lutheran anyway so even those really German places aren't going to be overwhelmingly Catholic. No one feels like they have any type of "ethnic obligation" to identify as Catholic (I find the premise absurd anyway, but that also might just be due to lack of being exposed to it.) Honestly I wasn't even aware there were people who thought that way and would identify as Catholic despite never attending Mass until I was an adult.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BRTD, you have to realize that your family incident is extremely unusual and in no way resembles the action of typical catholics, right?

In the present day, yes.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BRTD remains one of the only people who can get me to defend the Catholic Church. Mainly because he doesn't actually criticise the Church all that much instead of being an unrepentant bigot against the millions of practicing Catholics who don't toe the strict party line on every theological issue.

I also might as well point out that I was joking when I said that you can "never leave' the Catholic Church. As I recall I was actually referencing a joke I heard some comedian tell. Which isn't to say I wasn't trying to make a valid point - I was trying to impress upon BRTD that the American way - or, er, what he tells me is the American way - that religious identification changes is more or less unique to the US. In Ireland, but also in most of Europe generally, if someone's born Catholic they stay "Catholic", even if only nominally - prodigious conversion seems to be largely a US phenomenon.

The other point I was making is that - obviously - Irish identity and Catholic identity are almost inextricably linked. That's not something that's always had great consequences, of course, since you have the nasty element in the past of Protestants being considered "less" genuinely Irish, but I digress. A Catholic is not someone who is a fanatical supporter of the Catholic Church. The vast majority of Catholic women, shocker, use birth control, which as far as I'm aware the Pope is still opposed to. A Catholic is someone who culturally identifies as such.

For a personal example, my mother identifies as Catholic, goes to Mass on Christmas and Easter, but is by no means devout and doesn't stop what she's doing at noon to go through her rosary beads. She agrees with Catholic teaching on virtually no "social issue", but if you asked her she'd say she was Catholic without a second thought. That's very, very common. I'd go as far as to say it's the norm... at least here.

Grow up, BRTD. I don't have much time for the Catholic Church by any means, but your bigotry against Catholics is pretty obnoxious and I'm reasonably certain Hipster Jesus wouldn't approve.

I would not have much of a problem with this if these type of people often had such a difficult time accepting that their kids might not want to identify as Catholic even if in a purely nominal sense. If you recall back in 2008 Supersoulty was talking about how Tim Pawlenty (who obviously I am very very far from a fan of...to put it mildly) would be a disaster as McCain's running mate because lots of Catholic voters would freak out over him for converting away from the church.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

That's Sarah Palin. Considering everything else that came up about her and all the other controversy there was, that's a pretty boring and extremely minor thing.

Mind you I don't necessarily think there would've been a lot of controversy over Pawlenty for that either (after all there wasn't here when he was Governor, I never heard anyone bring that up and wasn't even aware of it until he started trying for the VP position), but there clearly is some attitude that would give Supersoulty the impression that that people would react that way.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BRTD, have you ever heard of "cafeteria Catholics"?  I'd wager they're a lot more common and real than whatever poorly-supported anecdote Superwhoever brought up once over four years ago.

You really do have a perplexing and hard-to-defend blind spot when it comes to these matters.

Actually, his point was that such people would be reluctant to vote for a ticket with an ex-Catholic on it. Basically he argued that to a lot of Catholics, including many swing voters who obviously did not agree with the church on everything, a ticket with a pro-choice Catholic would be seen as more tolerable than one with a pro-life ex-Catholic, basically rejecting the church trumps rejecting some of the church's teachings. I don't necessarily agree with this, but being pro-life does give some cover, imagine the howls that would come from groups like the Catholic League if a pro-choice ex-Catholic ever was on the Democratic ticket.

But of course I'm aware of such people. I just don't get why anyone would continue to affiliate with such an organization. You don't hear about cafeteria Southern Baptists do you? That's because people who are more liberal than that group leave it. Also consider that basically no one in my subculture identifies as Catholic, no I don't go around shows polling people about their religion or anything, but I've been pretty active on lots of forums where heated religious debates come up and am quite aware of the Christian hardcore scene, there are probably more atheists at your average Christian hardcore show than Catholics. Hell this song is from a Christian hardcore band.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BRTD, have you ever heard of "cafeteria Catholics"?  I'd wager they're a lot more common and real than whatever poorly-supported anecdote Superwhoever brought up once over four years ago.

You really do have a perplexing and hard-to-defend blind spot when it comes to these matters.

Actually, his point was that such people would be reluctant to vote for a ticket with an ex-Catholic on it. Basically he argued that to a lot of Catholics, including many swing voters who obviously did not agree with the church on everything, a ticket with a pro-choice Catholic would be seen as more tolerable than one with a pro-life ex-Catholic, basically rejecting the church trumps rejecting some of the church's teachings. I don't necessarily agree with this, but being pro-life does give some cover, imagine the howls that would come from groups like the Catholic League if a pro-choice ex-Catholic ever was on the Democratic ticket.

But of course I'm aware of such people. I just don't get why anyone would continue to affiliate with such an organization. You don't hear about cafeteria Southern Baptists do you? That's because people who are more liberal than that group leave it. Also consider that basically no one in my subculture identifies as Catholic, no I don't go around shows polling people about their religion or anything, but I've been pretty active on lots of forums where heated religious debates come up and am quite aware of the Christian hardcore scene, there are probably more atheists at your average Christian hardcore show than Catholics. Hell this song is from a Christian hardcore band.

Part of the reason you don't see as many leave is because the group that disagrees with the leadership is so large.  Its not like the Southern Baptists in which someone who disagrees with the leadership has only a small amount of others that disagree with their leadership.  Also to many its more of an idenity than a religious belief system.

See that kind of just reminds me of people who identify as Republicans and insist they can change the party and aren't enabling all the crazy in it. And the "identity" thing fails when you look at lots of people. Is Tom Cruise a Catholic? Or Keith Ellison? What about Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church Katharine Jefferts Schori? She was baptized in a Catholic church.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

He's speaking to the Disciples there, and infant baptism is not found anywhere in the Bible.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The context is quite a bit different. Do you support the Bharatiya Janata Party in India's proposals to ban religious conversion?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

For example here's a letter a hardline Hindu leader wrote to the last Pope. If there was a real life Deluge, I think this would certainly qualify for entry:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well it's 12 years old (last Pope remember, it was addressed to John Paul II) but I wouldn't mind, it'd give more people a good laugh. Remember that this guy and the BJP want people to be arrested and charged for things like baptizing former Hindus and Muslims who convert by choice.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The context is quite a bit different. Do you support the Bharatiya Janata Party in India's proposals to ban religious conversion?

For starters they're wrong about the whole Jesus thing But the other obvious difference here they're advocating government action to prevent people from converting, a major departure from believing on a personal level that someone can convert.

One reason why the Church isn't going to throw out all their records is that we don't believe in rebaptism and if they've already been baptized and would some day rejoin (which happens sometimes) they couldn't be baptized again.

Well isn't that true of any church? The only time one will rebaptize someone is if they believe they weren't baptized right the last time. Mine would rebaptize me because it doesn't recognize infant baptisms but no church would baptize me yet again unless I converted to Mormonism or something.

That's not a problem. People acting the way these people Supersoulty thought would toward an ex-Catholic candidate or some of my dead relatives did is.

And BRTD why do you care so much whether they call themselves Catholic? I could call myself a tulip but it doesn't make it true. Who cares? It's not like Catholicism holds that all one must do to attain salvation is be baptized. There is something called sin.

Well yeah they can, they have the legal right to do so just as much as people have the right to not call themselves Catholic regardless of upbringing (like 1/3 of Americans raised Catholic do.) I just don't approve of it.

I think it's fairly clear that BRTD has no respect for either the philosophical tradition, or the cultural history of Catholicism and the role it plays/has played for many cultures.

It's one thing to disagree with religious teachings, it's another to be willfully obtuse and disrespectful of history, tradition, and culture.

That depends on what you mean. After all it's somewhat similar to the argument the Hindu hardliner who wrote that letter above was making. "Respecting culture" really can just lead to an infringement on freedom for someone that culture, such as in the example benconstine brought up once of his rabbi refusing to marry Jews and non-Jews. But I don't think it's necessarily impossible to both respect a culture and also respect the freedom of someone to reject that culture.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Let me give you an example PR. Let's imagine someone who is raised Catholic but as they get older remain a Christian but come to the following opinions:

-Women should be allowed to preach and take leadership roles.
-Baptism should not be done on infants but only on those who understand the meaning.
-There is no transubstantiation in communion, it is only symbolic.
-Homosexuality should not be condemned.
-Someone does not need to confess their sins to a priest to be forgiven.
-Sola fide and sola gratia.

Should that person remain a Catholic just because of "OMG CULTURE!"?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm having a tough time following this argument. What I'm seeming to gather from it is that BRTD hates Catholics because many years earlier, he was told that Catholics might complain about Tim Pawlenty because of his conversion away from the Church? This gets stranger and stranger as we wander into t he deeper caverns of his mind.

No, no, no. He hates Catholics because one set of his grandparents were upset that his mom got married outside the church or something. Everything else is just a series of bizarre anecdotes that hinge off of that.  Mind you this is from a supposed sola scriptura believer who self admittedly hasn't read the bible, but will troll Catholic encyclicals to cherry pick points of arguments for an online forum.

Nah, I'm talking more about great-aunts and uncles, none of whom are still alive. Somewhat ironically the grandparent who would disapprove the most is my lifelong Lutheran paternal grandmother, who doesn't care what church her son would get married in and despite what Torie said has never had any problem with Catholics, but doesn't like Catholic apostasy. Or Buddhist apostasy or Islamic apostasy either for some reason. I won't even try to get olds.

I have read all of the Gospels.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Here's something that I think might result in some extreme Values Dissonance: in my whole subculture and scene, things like your native culture and traditions are not supposed to matter. Because one you get involved with the subculture, THAT becomes your culture. Where you came from is washed away. Even if you were born into some specialized ethnic community, that is not what you "belong" to anymore. Race, ethnicity and background no longer matter. You know my whole neutral hoodie/band shirt/jeans outfit? People wear that EVERYWHERE. You can go to a show in Europe or even South Africa and people will be dressed the exact same way. And it helps that it's neutral and not tied to any type of region or culture and also doesn't carry any racial or class connotations, etc. You know my dislike of cliques and fraternities? It's pretty much based on the same type of thinking. Now that's not to say all sorts of categories within that culture develop (as this makes clear), but it does mean that one doesn't attach themselves to an ethnic identity anymore, and that makes any type of purely nominal denominational affiliation meaningless. It's part of a greater stream of acceptability and equality, similar to Galatians 3:28, just change "Christ Jesus" to "punk/hardcore/indie/emo".

What this does mean is that if someone is a Christian (and mind you, atheism/agnosticism is closer to the norm), they'll probably identify as just "Christian" (or something like "Christ follower") and if they have a church it'll be something neutral in terms of race and ethnic connotations. So essentially that means no Catholics, at least for that reason mentioned above. And to actually be a Catholic, this means basically accepting things like patriarchism and this:

It also means there is zero tradition of accepted schism where you go off and do your own thing, while that right is central to the Protestant tradition.

which run COMPLETELY afoul to the acceptable cultural mores. The result? If you're involved you won't be Catholic, and if you're really in deep in the scene it's not likely you'll know someone in it whose Catholic, and thus will not be familiar with someone clinging to denominational affiliation based on culture and tradition alone. Such a premise becomes very alien and difficult to comprehend because the fact is, you just don't think that way. And people who are Christian are going to want a similar style and attitude, race, gender and ethnicity are meaningless, Christ is open to EVERYONE, and that means no type of "ethnic" practices. There are some other factors involved, including the basic fact that your typical Catholic church is going to be full of mostly just olds on any given Sunday, but that's the jist of the whole thing.

Now before someone points out that this is rather hypocritical for something that appeals pretty much only to middle to upper class white people, well yes, that's true. But it should at least give some insight into the mindset involved. So when PR is saying I have no respect for history, tradition and culture, well perhaps, but one must realize that's because I'm from somewhere where the rule is to NOT do that.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's not an argument for or against anything, just an explanation for why things are the way they are. Though this is kind of clear for other reasons, I think even without that you could understand why Catholicism does not appeal to people who are likely to go to Dude Fest (I did notice a Christian lower back tattoo on a girl there one year though, some Bible quotation.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There are definite regional sounds though, often with odd counterparts, for example there is a very distinctive German sound that is primarily influenced by New England in the late 90s, a French sound (and similar but not the same French Canadian sound) which is primarily influenced by San Diego circa 1990, and an Italian sound which is most like the Midwest in the mid-90s. Interestingly Brooklyn and Queens sound absolutely nothing alike. South Africa sounds like Queens or South Florida around the turn of the century.

I feel weird being able to identify all this, since most people upon hearing it are like "It's all just noise".

You know my whole neutral hoodie/band shirt/jeans outfit? People wear that EVERYWHERE. You can go to a show in Europe or even South Africa and people will be dressed the exact same way.

I spent many years going to a scene where everyone dressed the exact same way.....


it was Catholic school

It's obviously not a uniform or the "exact same way": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnWX85PnnfM

There's a ton of different fashion styles there. Just not any you'll likely see anyone wearing at mass.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There are definite regional sounds though, often with odd counterparts, for example there is a very distinctive German sound that is primarily influenced by New England in the late 90s, a French sound (and similar but not the same French Canadian sound) which is primarily influenced by San Diego circa 1990, and an Italian sound which is most like the Midwest in the mid-90s. Interestingly Brooklyn and Queens sound absolutely nothing alike. South Africa sounds like Queens or South Florida around the turn of the century.

I feel weird being able to identify all this, since most people upon hearing it are like "It's all just noise".

You know my whole neutral hoodie/band shirt/jeans outfit? People wear that EVERYWHERE. You can go to a show in Europe or even South Africa and people will be dressed the exact same way.

I spent many years going to a scene where everyone dressed the exact same way.....


it was Catholic school

It's obviously not a uniform or the "exact same way": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnWX85PnnfM

There's a ton of different fashion styles there. Just not any you'll likely see anyone wearing at mass.

How is this different from an environment, like a Catholic church, where it's acceptable to wear jeans, suits, chinos, bow ties, cords... whereas your people seem truly uniform.

How is that uniform? Even amongst just the band there's a variety. Also note all the variety here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gEMxYHkVAY

(For anyone who claims girls are never present at these, note the cute blonde nodding her head near the front.)

If anything BRTD would be more likely to be accepted in his gear in a standard evangelical church than I would be at one of his concerts in my sport coat and slacks

I was under the impression people dress casually at standard evangelical churches anyway (and these shows are not "concerts".)

But anyway in further regards to this:

Should that person remain a Catholic just because of "OMG CULTURE!"?

It hardly matters "should." The fact is that so many do, even though you wouldn't see the same experience with most Protestant denominations.

It surely matters that the Catholic church has 2,000 years of continuity, and within many people's lifetimes, took steps to adapt to some aspects of modern life. It also means there is zero tradition of accepted schism where you go off and do your own thing, while that right is central to the Protestant tradition.

Still consider that most people like I described would leave. 1 in 3 Americans raised Catholic no longer is, so it's not like leaving is something unheard of or that everyone values "culture" that highly. I also strongly suspect that number is above 50% for where one parent is not Catholic.

Anyway another point is that I live in the Midwest, where Catholics and non-Catholics have long been quite integrated, and there is no type of "unique" Catholic culture. In addition to that (going back to my point above), mixed marriages are incredibly common, so even if someone from one of those is raised Catholic, they probably won't feel much of an unbreakable cultural connection. So essentially people identifying as Catholic for purely superficial reasons is rather rare here, and almost unheard of in what I'm most involved in.

What I find a little ironic about all this is that I believe PR was raised Methodist by a raised Catholic mother, meaning he should have more familiarity with people leaving the church.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What I find a little ironic about all this is that I believe PR was raised Methodist by a raised Catholic mother, meaning he should have more familiarity with people leaving the church.

The United Methodist Church has arguably more in common with the Catholic Church than it has with hipster evangelical Vineyard churches

This is a United Methodist church: http://iamembrace.com

Also they ordain women.

but that's beside the point. In any case, I have Catholic relatives and friends who still find meaning in the Catholic Church's rituals and traditions, even though they don't agree with or follow the Church's teachings on any number of issues.

It has been pointed out to you that in places like Europe (and many locales in America, honestly) that people identify as "Catholic" or "Protestant" or "Jewish", etc. even though they are for all intents and purposes, secular or nominal in practice. Just because this supposedly isn't the case for people in the Upper Midwest (which I honestly am not so sure about, but whatever) doesn't mean that it isn't the case elsewhere. You don't have to be so narrowly provincial about this, or think that people are "stupid" because they find meaning in a religion other than personal religious belief.

I've said before that I would not have as much of an issue if such people didn't apply these same standards to other people who did not want to maintain a purely nominal affiliation.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The United Methodist Church uses liturgical colors, BRTD.

And the one I linked to has their own app available for iPhones and Androids.